Collecting Days
by procrastin8or951
Summary: Written for the prompt at hoodie time: Dean snaps and goes utterly feral - pure instinct, shoot-before-asking, totally nonverbal, no higher functioning at all. Sam has to take care of his brother.


**Collecting Days**

**Summary: **Written for the prompt over at hoodie-time: _I want more of that teeeeeeny snippet we saw in Show of Dean staring at the snacks in the machine. After Purgatory he has trouble making choices about the simplest things - choosing what to wear, what to eat, what to drink... on hunts he's fine, lightning-fast and decisive, but when they're in a gas station staring at rows upon rows of candy or whatnot, he freezes, loses all ability to choose. At first Sam is annoyed but then he figures out what's going on and helps. _

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_"Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back."_  
_― Mitch Albom, For One More Day_

Later, days of Sam's life would be devoted to investigating what happened in the four hours he'd been out with Ruby. It was just four hours, but when he stumbled back into the dark motel room, blood humming with the delicious mix of sex and blood, the world was off its axis. And then it kept tilting and Sam's back slammed into the floor, a warm, thrashing weight pressing on his chest, an almost growling rasp making its way to his ears, over the sound of the wind being knocked out of him. Instinctively, he brought his arm up to protect his face from the dark shape he sensed could be moving toward him, though he couldn't see a goddamn thing, and he must have been right because he felt something sharp sink into his arm and he yelped. Sam shoved hard against whatever creature was sitting on top of him, and offset its balance enough that he managed to roll them both over. He scrambled off the decidedly human body he landed atop and backed cautiously away, squinting through the dark at the shape also beating a hasty retreat. Sam reached blindly behind him for the light switch, desperate to level the playing field with whatever creature had infiltrated their motel, whatever creature must have already incapacitated his brother.

But when the lights flickered on with an unsettling crackle, the only thing in the room with Sam was, in fact, Dean. Dean, hunched in the corner of the room, eyeing Sam warily, Sam's blood dripping down his chin.

"What the fuck, Dean?" Sam demanded, wrapping his hand tightly around the bloody mess of his forearm. "What the everloving fuck?"

But Dean didn't say anything. Didn't even flinch. And when Sam took a step forward, Dean tensed, poised to lunge again. Sam fell back, uncertain what the fuck was happening at all.

"Christo." Nothing. "Dean." Nothing. No sign of recognition. Sam's heart pounded and the world felt fuzzy at the edges, but it was completely unlike the high he'd had not two minutes ago. He distantly recognized it as the opening sequence of an all-too-familiar song: panic.

There was nothing for it. This was not covered in John Winchester's Guide to Survival at All Costs. This was so far out of his league he wasn't even in the same ballpark. Which meant it was time for reinforcements.

Bobby had never heard of anything like it, outside of demonic possession. In case the centuries-old Christo test had stopped working in the last couple of days, Sam squirted some holy water at Dean from a distance, prompting a growl of displeasure, a vaguely threatening advance from the corner post Dean had taken up, but no steam or otherwise evil-indicating reaction. Dean remained unnaturally still otherwise, and Sam stared openly at him as he spoke into the phone in a low voice, eerily reminded of a large cat watching its prey.

"Did you see what did it?" Bobby asked him, and Sam heard more rustling pages.

"No," Sam said. "No, I was…I was out."

A long pause. "Are you sure it's something supernatural?"

"What the fuck else would it be?" Sam demanded and Dean hunched a little more, curled protectively at the sound. Sam frowned at him.

"I don't know," Bobby said. "Kid's been through a lot. Could be he just snapped." He said it like an apology, Sam thought, like Sam's brother was a fucking basket case and that was just all there was to say.

"This is _Dean_ we're talking about," he snapped like the notion was completely absurd, and Dean once again flinched back, glaring at Sam reproachfully. _Sorry_, Sam mouthed, and then wondered if Dean even actually understood him.

"Yeah, Dean," Bobby retorted, "the same Dean who just got back from Hell a couple of months ago!"

Another long pause. "What am I supposed to do?" Sam finally asked.

"Take him to a hospital?" Bobby suggested, sounding as uncertain as Sam felt. "Where are you?"

"Ohio," Sam replied on autopilot, citing the name of the city and the name of the nearest hospital. "I'll let you know where we end up."

"I'll start driving," Bobby said, by way of agreement, and hung up.

Getting into the motel room had been nothing compared to wrangling a mistrusting, angry, confused Dean into going to the hospital. At one point, as he held Dean down and pondered his next move, he actually considered trying a little bit of demon blood powers on Dean, just enough to gently knock him out so Sam could haul him out to the car. But, having no idea what would happen to a human if he tried that, and no idea what the hell was wrong with Dean, he decided not to risk it, going with the much less gentle but all around safer route of a solid punch to the jaw. And then he tied Dean's hands, just for good measure.

The hospital, it turned out, didn't know anything. They were good for stitching up the bite in Sam's arm, and they had some sedatives for Dean that Sam solidly approved of, but there wasn't much else they could do. Every scan and test they could think of to inflict on Dean, and based on the near-growling sounds from Dean, they were _inflicting_ him, every single one turned up nothing. There was nothing physically wrong with Dean. Nothing to explain why Sam sat by Dean's bedside for two solid days, accompanied late the second day by Bobby, watching Dean tug at the padded restraints on his arms and refuse to make eye contact with anyone.

On the third day, a woman who looked to be in her early forties with a long ponytail and glasses entered the room as Sam tried to coax Dean into eating some jello, with exactly zero success. "Mr. Winthrop?"

"Yes?" Sam said, standing up.

"I'm Dr. Madison. I'm a psychologist here at the hospital. I've thoroughly reviewed your brother's case, and I'd like to share my findings with you." She glanced up at Bobby, who cleared his throat and excused himself from the room.

Sam gestured wordlessly at the chair Bobby had vacated, sinking back into his own. Dean thrashed a little, clearly displeased by the interruption and scooted over in his bed to get as far from her as the restraints would allow. She glanced over at Dean and smiled softly, but redirected her attention to Sam before she spoke.

"Mr. Winthrop, I'm going to be honest with you," she began. "I've never seen anything like this before."

Sam's heart sank, but he gritted his teeth and nodded to her to continue.

"It is extremely rare, but there have been cases of adults reacting this way to trauma. I haven't seen it for myself, but I have come across a few studies, and I have read up in the past few days. What your brother is experiencing…" she paused. "Have you ever heard of feral children?"

Sam nodded, swallowed thickly. "Kids raised by wolves? Can't assimilate back into society?"

She nodded, eyes full of sympathy. "I believe Dean is experiencing something similar. It's as though he's lost his understanding of normal human society, language, his…connection to normal life."

Sam couldn't meet her eyes. He looked where he always did when he couldn't handle what was happening, but Dean merely blinked at him, frowning and tugging pointedly at his restraints. Sam looked away from him, at the bedside table, blinking rapidly. When that wasn't enough, he looked up at the ceiling, willing the tears to reabsorb into his eyes with the aid of gravity. He felt a hand on his and flinched away before he could stop himself.

"Mr. Winthrop, I'm so sorry. I know this is difficult…"

Sam cleared his throat. "What…" He coughed again, harder, and heard the rattle of the restraints, fought the urge to apologize to Dean for startling him. "What can we do?"

Dr. Madison sighed, and Sam looked back at the ceiling, willing himself to unhear that sound. "In adults, the only option, really, is to admit him to an institution better equipped to handle this sort of case…" she trailed off as Sam fixed her with the most withering stare he could muster.

"Are you talking about sending my brother to a mental hospital?"

"They'll take care of him," she offered.

"Will they cure him?" Sam demanded, wishing she would stop trying to placate him.

"In these cases," she murmured, shrinking a little under Sam's glare. "In these cases, full recovery is not likely."

"How not likely?"

"Almost impossible. I'm so sorry."

Sam stood up, almost knocking over his chair, and Dean honest-to-God hissed at the sound. Sam walked over the window, raking his fingers through his hair and breathing deeply through his nose, in and out, in and out, until the rhythm of his breathing overtook the cadence of the waves of panic and despair welling inside him. In and out, in and out, teeth clenched, head bowed, and he realized the in and out was not silent but sounded a lot like "please, please, please," and then it wasn't "please, please, please" but "Dean, Dean, Dean."

"Mr. Winthrop? I have the papers here for the transfer, if you'd like to sign…" the psychologist trailed off once more as Sam spun around to face her, using every inch of height he had to tower over her.

"No. He's not going," he said determinedly.

"I don't think you understand," she began but Sam cut her off.

"I don't think _you_ understand," he countered, drawing himself up to his full height. "This is my brother. I'm not going to send him off to some fucking loony bin. He's my _brother_. I have to be strong for him now. He's my responsibility."

She nodded, clearly a little frightened, and exited quickly without another word, almost crashing into Bobby as she left.

"Filled his scrips," Bobby offered, holding up a couple of paper pharmacy bags. "Reckon it might be time to get the hell out of Dodge, huh?"

They stuck around long enough for Dean to be administered a sedative, then Sam picked the locks on the restraints, manhandling Dean through the hallways as his brother uncoordinatedly thrashed at him while simultaneously leaning heavily on him.

Bobby had the Impala pulled up at the hospital doors and Sam pushed his brother into the backseat, pushing down the locks and buckling him in, sustaining several scratches as he did so. Then Sam rushed around to the driver's seat, assuring Bobby they would meet him at his house by midnight.

It was a drive almost long enough for all the thinking Sam had to, and by the time they reached Bobby's house, Dean now wide awake and extremely unhappy, Sam was more than ready to administer whatever drugs Dean needed to let Sam get a good night's sleep. Drugging his brother was absolutely not going to be a permanent solution, but it was going to be a solution for tonight.

Sam carefully locked the door to the panic room, peering in the window at Dean collapsed on the small cot, breathing slow and even as the drugs kicked in.

"He'll be all right," Bobby said. "C'mon. Get you a drink." He clapped Sam on the shoulder and led the way up the stairs.

Five minutes later, Sam was already on his second drink, staring into the amber depths of the whiskey Dean had always liked best, telling Bobby what exactly he'd turned up on the drive.

"I thought something happened to him, you know? While I was…out." Sam drained his glass and poured himself another. Bobby raised his eyebrows, whether at Sam's obvious omission or the fact that Sam was drinking at an alcohol-poisoning pace he didn't know.

"But?" Bobby prompted, finally.

"It didn't," Sam said flatly. "He's been getting like this. Slowly."

"What are you talking about?" Bobby took a gulp of his own whiskey, winced. "I talked to him a couple days before, and he was fine."

Sam shook his head. "He wasn't fine. He hasn't been fine since he got back. I thought…I don't know. That he'd get over it. Like Hell is something you just get over." He snorted. "Stupid.

"He stopped talking, you know. I didn't notice, not like I should have, but thinking back on it…He's been shutting down for a while. Maybe ever since the…ever since the siren." Sam closed his eyes at the memory, the things he'd said to his brother, the look on his brother's face. The way Dean hadn't said anything about Hell ever again. The way he'd hit the booze even harder, bottled up his feelings tighter, closed himself off from the world.

_Lost his connection to normal life._ Fuck.

"Jesus, Bobby, he's been there for me my whole life. Every soccer game, school play, every homework assignment I didn't get. He helped me with all of it. Stuff that didn't even matter, you know? And then he fucking went to Hell for me and I threw it in his face." Sam knocked back the rest of his drink and reached for the bottle, but Bobby moved it out of his reach.

"Stop it, Sam," he said quietly. "I'm not saying you've been the best brother in the world lately, but you can't be blaming yourself for this. That ain't going to help Dean at all."

Sam shook his head again. "There isn't any help, Bobby. He's not going to get better."

"Then you help him how he is now," Bobby said, like it was just that simple. And maybe, Sam thought, it was. It was that simple. Certainly not easy, but simple. Dean had always taken care of Sam. And what had Sam been trying to do this entire year, this whole hunt for Lilith, the demon blood and the exorcising and all of it, but take care of Dean?

It took two weeks before Dean would willingly allow Sam to touch him. For those first two weeks, Dean prowled around the edges of rooms, keeping a watchful eye and both Sam and Bobby. Whenever either reached out to him, offering the tiniest bit of contact, it was met with either immediate retreat or instantaneous attack. Odds were about fifty-fifty which it would be. Sam had more bite marks and scratches, he thought, from Dean than he did from all the Black Dogs they'd ever hunted combined.

It was disturbing on many levels, not the least of which was how easily Sam could see the instincts taught by their father playing out in Dean's paranoia. Dean would only eat the food Sam set out for him when he was so hungry that he could ignore the risk of poison, of attack. Dean had always been shoot first, ask questions later, and now it was magnified a hundredfold. As far as Sam could tell, in Dean's mind, the world and everything in it was out to get him, and that included Sam. He would attack if he felt threatened, and a threat could be something as simple as an unannounced sneeze. Thankfully Sam had had the foresight to disarm Dean before the trip to the hospital, though a couple of unfortunate incidents showed just how clever and thorough Dean was at hiding weapons on his person, and a couple more proved his resourcefulness in creating new ones.

Sam spent as much time as he could reading about whatever this issue Dean had could be called, trying every trick in the admittedly short book, but nothing really seemed to work. He'd tried talking to Dean as though he was still _Dean_, but Dean just stared at him suspiciously. He'd tried plying Dean with pie, but Dean would just back away. He tried giving Dean pictures he'd drawn, stick figure versions of him and Dean and Bobby, the way he'd seen Dean do with Lucas. Dean ate the paper, if he took it at all. All that seemed to work was time. But Sam wasn't giving up yet. He continued to talk to Dean, trying to get him used to the sound of voices. He continually offered contact, hoping one day Dean would see it as something other than a threat. He continued looking for foods Dean liked, giving burgers and pie as peace offerings that Dean continually refused.

Finally, after a solid two weeks of feeding Dean, being quiet and soothing, two weeks of managing not to do anything Dean might find threatening, when Dean crept a little closer to Sam where he sat on the sofa eating a sandwich and Sam held out his hand, Dean didn't flinch away. He didn't attack. He froze in place, and Sam made eye contact, slowly reaching out to touch Dean's arm lightly. Sam patted him gently and asked if he was hungry. Dean stared at him and took a step back. Then took a step forward. He carefully held his arm out to Sam, who slowly and deliberately reached out and touched him again. Dean looked at where Sam's hand rested on his arm, not squeezing or hurting or restraining, just touching. Slowly, he lowered his arm and Sam took his hand back, staring at Dean, openmouthed. He was afraid to move, afraid to disturb whatever tenuous peace this was.

"Was that what I thought it was?" Bobby asked from the doorway and Dean startled, backing away from the sound and _toward_ Sam.

"I think so," Sam said softly, expecting the sound to startle his brother. But Dean just turned to him, considering, before reaching out and touching Sam's shoulder, carefully.

After that, Dean tended to hover closer to Sam, following him around the house, always sitting at his elbow, where he could reach out and tap Sam's arm for reassurance. They slowly worked out a system. Dean tapped Sam when he wasn't sure about something. When Bobby's voice was loud or the dogs barked, when a car backfired or Sam gave him a new kind of food. In response, Sam would touch Dean's arm or his shoulder, nod as comfortingly as he could. And Dean seemed to take that as gospel. Sam remembered the days just after he learned that monsters were real, what his dad really did. He remembered every sound scaring him, the nightmares and the terror. And he remembered Dean, always quietly reassuring, sometimes flicking on the lights to banish the shadows, sometimes rubbing Sam's back until he fell back asleep. He remembered when Dean's assurance had been his bible.

Four weeks after arriving at Bobby's, Dean was still suspicious of Bobby, but seemed to trust Sam implicitly. And he seemed a little more comfortable with the day to day sounds of Bobby and Sam living, with the dogs barking and Bobby fixing cars, with Sam watching TV or listening to the radio. Sam experimented a little bit, playing Dean's cassette tapes for him, and while the louder songs still only elicited insistent, offbeat tapping on Sam's shoulder, he seemed to like the rest of them. In the last few days, he'd even started handing Sam a tape when he wanted to listen.

After four weeks, Sam had to admit he had completely exhausted every internet resource he could find about helping Dean. He'd ordered some books to the local library, though, and decided it was time to make a quick trip out to retrieve them. Get some fresh air. He'd been cooped up in the house with Dean for a solid month, and he'd only managed to teach Dean to shower a week ago. It was far past time for some fresh air.

Sam snuck out while Dean was curled on the couch, sound asleep, listening to a Led Zeppelin tape on the lowest volume setting. It was a quick trip, just long enough to swing past the library and the grocery store, stock up on the frozen cheeseburgers that were the only thing Sam could get Dean to eat consistently.

Sam hauled his books and the paper bags of groceries into the kitchen, straightening up and expecting Dean to come around the corner looking for him. But there was nothing. Nothing except the low rumble of Bobby's voice, a faintly frantic tone to it, and Sam felt panic squeeze his heart.

He found them in the living room, Dean kneeling on the floor, clinging to Sam's charcoal hoodie, gasping for breath, the silver tracks of tears tracing down his cheeks. Sam pushed past Bobby and into the room, and Dean was up in an instant, pressed firmly against Sam, nose against his collarbone, breaths hiccupping.

"What happened?" Sam cast a wide-eyed glance at Bobby before carefully, lightly encircling Dean in his arms, not tight enough for him to feel trapped, just enough for him to know Sam was there.

"He woke up and you were gone. And he had a fit. Ran through the whole house looking for you. Fell down the stairs," Bobby filled him in. He reached out to squeeze Dean's shoulder, an instinct borne of years of taking care of them, but remembered himself and pulled back.

"Is he okay?" Sam asked, gently leading Dean to the couch, pushing him to sit.

"He wouldn't let me look," Bobby said, frustration and worry in his voice.

"It's okay," Sam murmured in Dean's ear, carefully running his hands over Dean's body, pausing at his ribs when Dean flinched away from him. Sam touched him lightly on the arm until Dean met his eyes, relaxed, then Sam lifted his brother's shirt gently and examined the injury, the way he and Dean had done for each other a thousand times before. "Just bruised," he said soothingly. "It's okay. You're okay."

Dean tugged at the hoodie he still held in his lap, and Sam considered. "Do you want to wear it?" Dean frowned at him, tugged at it again, pushed it at Sam.

Sam unzipped the front and held it up, guiding one of Dean's arms through it the way Dean always had for him when they lived in cold places. When both arms were in, Sam zipped it up to Dean's chin and flipped the hood up. It was too big on Dean. It had been too big on him years ago, and with the weight he had lost in recent weeks, it was almost ridiculous now. But Dean buried his nose in the collar and took a deep breath, brought his sleeve-covered hands up for inspection, and he seemed happy.

"I'll go make us some dinner," Bobby offered quietly, and Sam nodded to him over Dean's head.

Sam leaned toward the cassette player, popping in a different tape, one of the ones he'd marked with highlighter on the label to show that Dean still liked these. He picked up a nearby book, listening as Dean matched his breathing to the beat of the music, still buried in the hoodie.

After just a few minutes, Sam felt a sleeved hand grab his arm. He glanced at Dean, who reached and touched the book. Sam frowned. "What? You want to read it?" He handed it to Dean, who unsleeved one hand to sift through the pages before handed it back to his brother. Sam looked down, thumbing through to find his place, but Dean reached over and tapped on the cover of the book again, harder this time. And Sam suddenly knew, somehow, what Dean wanted, the way Dean had always known what he wanted before he even asked, the easy communication of two brothers who had lived in each other's pockets forever, whose lives revolved around each other.

Sam found his place and began to read aloud, his voice the same soothing tone he'd adopted talking to Dean for the last month, and he realized it was yet one more thing he had learned from Dean, the voice to use when someone was sick or scared. If he tried, he could remember back to Dean using that tone when he read to Sam, carefully teaching him his letters and the sounds, laughing. "Have to show those teachers how smart you are, Sammy," he'd said. "Read it one more time."

Sam had thought sometimes, after the shapeshifter had revealed Dean's thoughts, about all the things Dean had given up for him, all the empty spaces that were in Dean's life because he'd given them to Sam. But here, now, reading a book about angel lore to his brother who had lost all connection to the world but was still inexorably tied to him, Sam knew Dean hadn't given up anything. He had invested it, invested all of it in Sam, the most important part of his life. And now Sam would give it back, day by day, with interest, give Dean everything Sam had once needed, what Dean needed now. Because if Sam was the most important part of Dean's life, of course Dean was the most important part of Sam's.

**End**


End file.
